Guilfoyle at Craigaderyn had acted as eavesdropper, and on more than one occasion had watched and followed, overseen and overheard us, and knew perfectly all about our secret engagement, her mother's views and opposition to any alliance save a noble or at least a moneyed one; and of all the stories he had the unblushing effrontery to tell, the present was perhaps the most daring. He had contrived, during the short visit he had paid to Walcot Park, under the wing of Mr. Sharpus, to let Estelle know by covert hints and remarks all he knew, and all he might yet disclose to her mother, to the young Earl of Naseby, to Lord Pottersleigh, Sir Madoc, and others; and feeling herself in his power, with all her lofty spirit the poor girl cowered before him, and he felt this instinctively, as he turned his green eyes exultingly upon her. But for a delicate, proud, and sensitive girl to have the secrets of her heart laid bare, and at the mercy of a man like this, was beyond all measure exasperating. And this strange narrative of his, coming after what she had seen, and all that Pompon with French exaggeration had related, crushed her completely for the time. "I have another little item to add to our Hardinge romance," said he, with his strange, hard, dry, crackling laugh, and a smile of positive delight in his shifty green eyes, while he toyed with the long ears of Tiny the shock, which had resumed its place in Lady Naseby's lap. "You remember the locket with the initials 'H. H. G.' and the date 1st September which Miss Dora Lloyd mentioned when we were at Craigaderyn?" "I have some recollection of it," replied Lady Naseby, languidly. "Curiously enough, as I rode past the spot where you saw that touching and interesting interview--the lane, I mean--I perceived something glittering among the grass. Dismounting, I picked up that identical locket, which doubtless the lady had dropped, thus losing it within a few days of its bestowal, if we are to judge by the date." "And you have it?" "Here." Opening his leather portemonnaie, he drew from it a gold locket, to which a black-velvet ribbon was attached, and said with the utmost deliberation, "The initials represent those of Henry Hardinge and his inamorata, and behold!" Pressing a spring, the secret of which he knew very well, the locket flew open, and within it were seen the photograph of the pale woman whom they saw in Craigaderyn church, and opposite to it one of _me_, inserted by himself, pilfered from the album of Winifred Lloyd, as we afterwards ascertained. "Aha! the moral Mr. Henry Hardinge with his _petite femme entretenue_, as the French so happily term it." Lady Estelle was quite calm now in her demeanour, and she surveyed the locket with a contemptuous smile; but her face was as white as marble. She felt conscious that it was so, and hence sat with her back to the nearest window, lest her mother should perceive that she was affected.